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Legal Cases

Legal Cases

For 45 years, Legal Momentum has made historic and enduring contributions to the rights and opportunities available to women through its litigation initiatives. Legal Momentum takes a select number of cases that raise significant issues affecting the rights of women and girls across the nation. If you think your case meets our criteria, please contact us at 212.925.6635 or at caseinquiries@legalmomentum.org.

Determined whether disparate impact regulations adopted by federal agencies to effectuate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are enforceable by private litigants in actions for declaratory and injunctive relief.

Determined the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, a state law that imposed waiting periods and required the dissemination of information concerning the risks of abortion to women seeking the procedure.

This brief is in support of post-conviction relief for petitioner based on prosecutorial misconduct, due to prosecutor’s focus during trial on petitioner's sexual involvements with men other than her husband, causing prejudicial impact of gender stereotypes in the courtroom.

Determined whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibited employers from offering the option of receiving retirement benefits from companies that paid lower monthly retirement benefits to women than to men.

Determined whether an employer violates Title VII when, in making post-Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”) eligibility determinations for pension and other benefits, the employer does not restore service credit lost by female employees when they took pregnancy leaves under pre-PDA policies.

Determined the ability of plaintiffs to use a federal law that prohibits state officials from violating constitutional or statutory rights to sue the state for failing to provide child support enforcement services mandated under federal law.

Determined whether Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment authorized Congress to enact Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to the extent that it allows states to be sued for violating the ADA and allows Congress to enforce the ADA against the states.

Determined whether the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to revoke the membership of a scout leader for being gay despite state law prohibiting such discrimination in places of public accommodation.

Determined whether anti-abortion protesters who obstruct access to abortion clinics violate 42 U.S.C. 1985(3), a law which prohibits conspiracies to deprive "any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws."

This lawsuit challenged the New York City Police Department’s policy and practice of refusing to arrest men who beat their wives. It also charged family court clerks with refusing to allow battered women to file petitions for Orders of Protection against their husbands.

Determined whether an employer violated federal anti-discrimination law when it responded to an employee's sexual harassment complaint by transferring her to a less desirable job and later suspending her without pay for over a month.

The plaintiff alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a junior high school teacher for approximately two years. She sued her school under Title IX and various school officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for due process violations.

Individuals and the EEOC are seeking justice for dozens of immigrant women and men subjected to abuse in their workplace, including sexual assault, extortion, felonious assault, and sexual harassment. This specific appeal seeks to enforce the confidentiality protections available under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) for individuals who apply for U-visas and T-visas, which are available to crime victims who cooperate with authorities and for immigrant family violence victims who apply for immigration relief under VAWA.

The issue of confidentiality of VAWA self-petitions, U-visa, and T-visa applications has been litigated in the lower courts, but this appeal is the first time that a federal appeals court has heard the issue. By submitting this brief, we hope to strengthen the Violence Against Women Act by ensuring that immigrant victims of sexual assault, harassment, and other crimes receive the full protections available to them under the law.

Determined whether a city ordinance that prohibited targeted residential picketing, which was enacted based on extensive evidence of intrusive picketing outside homes of abortion providers, violated the First Amendment rights of the picketers.

Determined whether welfare recipients who must work in public "workfare" jobs in order to receive welfare benefits are protected against sexual harassment and discrimination in those jobs by Title VII, the federal law against employment discrimination.

Determined whether it is a violation of equal protection to apply a hundred-year-old Massachusetts law that denies marriage to persons who could not legally marry in their home state to same sex couples seeking to marry in Massachusetts.

Determined whether allowing victim's statements made to 911 or to police to be used as evidence in criminal prosecutions where victim does not testify, including domestic violence prosecutions, violates criminal defendant's rights under Confrontation Clause of U.S. Constitution.

Determined whether it is proper for a a federal appeals court to overturn the jury verdict when a sexual harassment plaintiff has convinced a jury that she was subjected to a hostile environment in her workplace.

Concerned challenging UT Austin's admission plan. The amicus brief was for respondent UT Austin, arguing for the Court to uphold UT Austin’s admission plan and prior Court opinions holding the educational benefits of diversity are a compelling interest permitting colleges and universities to use in narrowly-tailored individualized review of applicants.

Considered whether denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the individual liberty and equality safeguards of the Massachusetts Constitution, protecting freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into protected areas of life and freedom to partake in state benefits.

The case concerns whether long-term home health care workers employed by third-party agencies are entitled to the federal minimum wage and overtime. The health care industry has challenged Congress’s and the Department of Labor’s efforts to provide overtime and sick leave to home health care workers, who are overwhelmingly women of color and live below the poverty line, even though they work full time. The industry should not be permitted to prevent these women from rising out of poverty.

Determined the constitutionality of a Colorado statute that protects women’s access to reproductive health services by making it unlawful for an individual to knowingly come closer than eight feet to a person within 100 feet of a health care facility, without first getting that person’s consent.

Determined whether a landlord's eviction of an organization serving transgendered clients, after the organization refused landlord's demand to bar these clients from common areas of the building, including the entrance and the restrooms, constitutes sex discrimination under New York law.

In this case, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional right of immigrant parents to care for, have custody of, and control over their children. The Court ruled that Maria Luis, a Guatemalan woman, should not lose custody of her children because she was deported from the United States.

Determined whether a victim of domestic violence may be penalized for "failure to produce records" in an eminent domain suit, where she had lost access to her records when fleeing from her abusive husband.

Determined whether a person who is retaliated against for complaining of sex discrimination in federally funded education programs may bring a lawsuit for damages under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education.

Congress enacted the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) for the primary purpose of preventing children from viewing indecent or otherwise harmful material online. The legislators emphasized that its goal was “to help encourage the private sector to protect our children from being exposed to obscene and indecent material on the Internet” by removing liability for Internet companies that “make a good faith effort to edit the smut from their systems.” The First Circuit Court of Appeals—like several other courts—interpreted the law as providing complete immunity to websites that solicit and profit from illegal content so long as the legal claims against them bear some relationship to online content provided by a third party. Because Backpage’s “adult” services section contains advertisements written by paid users, the First Circuit held that the site was protected from liability for aiding the Petitioners’ sexual exploitation as minors, even though the Petitioners persuasively alleged that Backpage took an active role in shaping the content of the ads and deliberately tailored its website to “make sex trafficking easier.” This sweeping interpretation is not what Congress intended when it enacted legislation seeking to encourage website operators to behave responsibly.

This case, the first sexual harassment class action to reach federal court, determined whether the person appointed to determine the damages owed to victims of workplace sexual harassment committed legal errors in his discovery report.

Determined whether the U.S. government violated international human rights treaties by failing to protect an individual from – and provide a remedy for – domestic violence, when local law enforcement failed to do so.

At issue is delays in the conciliation process for employment discrimination complaints. Women in non-traditional jobs will be particularly harmed by the delays associated with opening conciliation to judicial intervention. Judicial second-guessing of EEOC confidential conciliation deters claims and stymies systemic reform. Congress’ empowerment of the EEOC to pursue claims in its own name and to effect systemic reform without exposing victims is particularly important in non-traditional fields, where retaliation is especially dangerous and female workers are often isolated. Petitioner’s proposals directly subvert the EEOC’s statutorily mandated role in Title VII’s enforcement scheme, exposing women to retaliation and delaying access to justice. Judicial examination of pre-adjudicatory conciliation undermines judicial economy, a crucial stated goal of such conciliation.

Women in blue-collar, non-traditional jobs face employment barriers more perilous than the glass ceiling, most notably severe sexual harassment and the threat that gender discrimination will escalate into workplace violence. Non-traditional industries have both low numbers of female employees and some of the highest rates of gender discrimination. In some male-dominated occupations, women experience levels of discrimination more than three times greater than the national average. Worse still, many non-traditional jobs require collaboration among coworkers to prevent significant safety risks; in these workplaces, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation may have potentially lethal consequences. Women working in these fields need the promise of confidentiality and systemic reform that Title VII specifically directs the EEOC to provide.

Determined whether Nebraska, in passing law denying welfare benefits to a child because the child's family was already receiving welfare when the child was born, intended the law to apply to children whose parents were unable to work because of disability.

Determined whether it is constitutional, under the Equal Protection Clause, to enforce different requirements for citizenship on an out-of-wedlock child who is born abroad to a U.S. citizen, depending upon whether the U.S. citizen is the child's mother or father.

Determined whether the New Mexico Constitution's Equal Rights Amendment prohibited a state ban on Medicaid funding for medically necessary abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnancy was life threatening, on ground that no medically necessary procedures for men were denied funding.

Determined whether it is constitutional, under the Equal Protection Clause, to enforce different requirements for citizenship on out-of-wedlock child who is born abroad to a U.S. citizen, depending upon whether the U.S. citizen is the child's mother or father.

Challenged New York City’s Administration for Children Services’ practice of bringing child neglect proceedings against battered mothers on the basis of their having “allowed” their children to witness domestic violence or their having “engaged” in domestic violence simply by being a victim of domestic violence.

Determined whether the State of Washington can terminate state-funded food assistance to lawfully present immigrants who are ineligible for federally-funded food assistance due to their immigrant status.

This case was brought by Planned Parenthood and four doctors against anti-choice organizations and individuals for threats under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Determined the constitutionality of a state regulation that denied Medicaid coverage of medically necessary or therapeutic abortions except in cases where the pregnancy was life threatening or resulted from rape or incest.

Determined whether money awarded for lost compensation during the period between judgment on an employment sexual harassment case and reinstatement of an employee constitute an element of compensatory damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, such that it is subject to the Act's statutory cap on such damages.

For reversal of the district court decision granting defendants-appellees summary judgment. Appellant had sued regarding false charges of theft after she reported a robbery and rape. The brief argues the police had no probable cause for arrest, but instead based the charges on long-discredited beliefs about sexual assault. In its decision, the Court of Appeals found the District Court to be in error in granting summary judgment on the probable cause issue.

Amici Curiae Brief of the American Civil Liberties Union, The National Consumer Law Center, and Legal Momentum, et al, in support of respondent on writ of certiorari to the U. S. Court of Appeal sfor the Fifth Circuit.

This brief focuses on two contemporary forms of housing discrimination that have had particularly devastating consequences: race discrimination in subprime mortgage lending and sex discrimination against victims of domestic and sexual violence.

The issue in Mt. Holly is whether the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which bans housing discrimination on the grounds (among others) of race or sex, authorizes “disparate impact” challenges to policies that do not explicitly discriminate on the ground of race or sex, but which have an unjustified disproportionate racial or gender impact. Our brief argues that the FHA does authorize disparate impact claims.

Legal Momentum filed the brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Legal Momentum, Futures Without Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the NOW Foundation, and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence.

Ms. Tucker is appealing the Circuit Court of Cook County ruling, affirming the Chicago Housing Authority's decision to terminate her Housing Choice Section 8 Voucher, without consideration of the applicability of the Violence Against Women Act and Ms. Tucker's status as a victim of domestic violence.

Determined whether an organization is considered place of public accommodation when its purpose is to build relationships that would advance leadership skills, and therefore cannot discriminate on the basis of sex.

In October, 2013, Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. vs. Castleman, for which Legal Momentum co-authored an amicus brief. The case centered on whether a gun trafficker who abused the mother of his child should be able to legally buy guns. The amicus brief urged the Supreme Court to uphold federal laws—and those state laws like Tennessee’s—that were enacted to ensure that domestic violence abusers are prohibited from possessing guns. In March, 2014, the Court decided to uphold the provisions of the Violence Against Women Act that prevent abusers from purchasing firearms. Justice Sotomayor cited information from Legal Momentum’s amicus brief in her majority opinion.

Determined whether a policy that prohibits potentially fertile and pregnant women from participating in occupations that could be detrimental to their reproductive capacities constitutes sex discrimination in violation of Title VII.

Determined whether applying a housing complex's "zero tolerance for violence" policy by threatening a person with eviction for having been the victim of domestic violence unlawfully discriminates on the basis of sex.

Determined the right to sue under Title VII for wrongful discharge when a woman is dismissed from employment because her batterer works in the same establishment and has threatened with violence if she is not fired.

The brief argues that lower court committed legal error by failing to adequately consider the effects of domestic violence on the child victim when granting unsupervised visitation to Defendant-Appellee.